Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [132]
Miles thrust his head and arms up through his black tee-shirt and pulled it down, grinning slightly. He began stuffing his feet into his Dendarii-issue combat boots. "It's only a precaution. May never use it. Just in case I need a private line into the embassy in an emergency."
"I cannot imagine," said Ivan primly, "any emergency that a loyal junior officer can't confide to his very own sector security commander." His voice grew stern. "Neither would Destang. Just what are you hatching in the back of your twisty little mind, Coz?"
Miles sealed his boots and paused in seriousness. "I'm not sure. But I may yet see a chance to save . . . something, from this mess."
Elli, listening intently, remarked, "I thought we had saved something. We uncovered a traitor, plugged a security leak, foiled a kidnapping, and broke up a major plot against the Barrayaran Imperium. And we got paid. What more do you want for one week?"
"Well, it would have been nice if any of that had been on purpose, instead of by accident," Miles mused.
Ivan and Elli looked at each other across the top of Miles's head, their faces beginning to mirror a similar unease. "What more do you want to save, Miles?" Ivan echoed.
Miles's frown, directed to his boots, deepened. "Something. A future. A second chance. A . . . possibility."
"It's the clone, isn't it?" said Ivan, his mouth hardening. "You've gone and let yourself get obsessed with that goddamn clone."
"Flesh of my flesh, Ivan." Miles turned his hands over, staring at them. "On some planets, he would be called my brother. On others he might even be called my son, depending on the laws regarding cloning."
"One cell! On Barrayar," said Ivan, "they call it your enemy when it's shooting at you. You having a little short-term memory trouble? Those people just tried to kill you! This—yesterday morning!"
Miles smiled briefly up at Ivan without replying.
"You know," Elli said cautiously, "if you decided you really wanted a clone, you could have one made. Without the, ah, problems of the present one. You have trillions of cells . . ."
"I don't want a clone," said Miles. I want a brother. "But I seem to have been . . . issued this one."
"I thought Ser Galen bought and paid for him," complained Elli. "The only thing that Komarran meant to issue you was death. By Jackson's Whole law, the planet of his origin, the clone clearly belongs to Galen."
Jockey of Norfolk, be not bold, the old quote whispered through Miles's memory, for Dickon thy master is bought and sold. . . . "Even on Barrayar," he said mildly, "no human being can own another. Galen descended far, in pursuit of his . . . principle of liberty."
"In any case," said Ivan, "you're out of the picture now. High command has taken over. I heard your marching orders."
"Did you also hear Destang say he meant to kill my—the clone, if he can?"
"Yeah, so?" Ivan was looking mulish indeed, an almost panicked stubbornness. "I didn't like him anyway. Surly little sneak."
"Destang has mastered the art of the final report too," said Miles. "Even if I went AWOL right now, it would be physically impossible for me to get back to Barrayar, beg the clone's life from my father, have him lean on Simon Illyan for a countermand, and get the order back here to Earth before the deed was done."
Ivan looked shocked. "Miles—I always figured to be embarrassed to ask Uncle Aral for a career favor, but I thought you'd let yourself be peeled and boiled before you'd cry to your Dad for anything! And you want to start by hopscotching a commodore? No C.O. in the service would want you after that!"
"I would rather die," agreed Miles tonelessly, "but I can't ask another to die for me. But it's irrelevant. It couldn't succeed."
"Thank God." Ivan stared at him, thoroughly unsettled.
If I cannot convince two of my best friends I'm right, thought Miles, maybe I'm wrong.
Or maybe I have to do this one alone.
"I just want to keep a line open, Ivan," he said.